Sunday, January 16, 2005

Today was an interesting day. First of all church. We only had 31 people attend because of lack of pera[1] and other various and sundry reasons. We did have three investigators there: Bro Aldana, Bro Andales, and Bro Manalo. We had really good meetings and the spirit was strong. Bro Viloria was one of the speakers today and he did a really good job. Even though it is his first time to speak in front of people, he did a really good job. In fact it was one of the best talks that I’ve heard here in Calintaan.

After lunch we had an interesting experience. We went over to the Catholic Church for that planning meeting for the Bible week. They fed us lunch, which was delicious by the way. The meeting went well but I learned again how different out church is from other churches. Hopefully that will be a really good way to get some positive publicity for the church. They had a lot of good ideas but I’m not sure exactly what we can do and so we’re going to have to ask Elder Fa’oa about it. Just for example, they want to have a biblical thought and prayer at the schools every day at the flag raising. Also they are doing an exhibit about the bible. The only things that I’m worried about are posting a banner on the church and the program after the Sunday parade. Obviously we’re not going to participate in the parade but in the program we got given the part to say a prayer about social transformation and also they wanted Elder Cox and I to carry a collection basked for gathering money. Well we’re not going to do the collection basket!! I’m not sure about the “prayer.” Hopefully Pres Isla can give it so that we can get rid of the “American Church” image. Anyhow, all of the church leaders were really respectful and kind to us. I think at first they were kind of surprised but it went really well and they’re all really nice. I really have good hope that we’ve started a good relationship with the other church leaders here. Hopefully this will all work out well.

[1] Pera = money